Badalona is Catalonia's third most populated city, with around two hundred and twenty thousand people. It sits directly against Barcelona to the north, joined to it by the metro. Under the Romans this was Baetulo, and excavations from that era stand in the centre beneath a museum.
For anyone moving, Badalona is Barcelona at half the price: twenty minutes to the centre by metro, a beach inside the city, hospitals and schools on the spot. It is a working city with an industrial past and almost no tourism. Housing costs noticeably less than Barcelona's for the same city options. The drawback is density and building: this is not a resort or a quiet place but an ordinary large suburb.
Worth a trip nearby
- Barcelona · 10 km — the country's second city, direct by metro
- Mataró · 20 km — the Maresme district capital and the train
- Montserrat · 55 km — the monastery and the serrated mountain
Resalesource
2 861€/m²
+9% price growth yoy
appraised valueappraisedValue from licensed appraisers, published by the Ministry of Housing. Not a listing price.Why it matters. It runs systematically below asking prices. Comparing it with another town's asking price flips the comparison., Ministerio de Vivienda
Populationsource
230 642
Foreign residents 18.4%
Sunshine hours per year
2 500h
Badalona sits in Barcelonès, Barcelona, right on the water. The square metre is 39% below the Costa Barcelona median: €2 861 against €4 675. You can live here without a car: our rating is 5 out of 5, rare on the Spanish coast, and the town has its own train station. A proper city of 230,642: hospitals, schools and work are all here.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
Nearest hospitalsource
3min by car
Hospital Municipal de Badalona
Badalona · 0.7 km · public
Terrainsource
rolling
Centre at 7 m, 42 m of elevation change
25–80 m of change — the climb from the sea to the centre is noticeable on foot
Car-freeour rating
5/5
easy without a car
Stations: Badalona, Montgat · tram: 6 · bus stops within 1.5 km: 155
Where from: the Ministry of Health hospital catalogue, road time · elevations from the Copernicus terrain model · OpenStreetMap · ratingswinter liveabilityOur 1-to-5 rating of whether a town lives from November to March — open places, running transport, people around.Why it matters. Most resorts shut for winter. Tourists never notice; someone who moved gets four empty months. An estimate, not a measurement. for car-free and hospital minutes are ours.
Sea temperature
5 months above 20 °CTourist load
What tenants actually pay
sourced75th percentile75th percentileThe rent that only a quarter of leases exceed. The median is the middle of all leases, old ones included.Why it matters. A new lease is signed closer to this figure than to the median: long-standing tenants pay old rates, a newcomer pays today's.
867€/mo
This is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 11 538 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 150 € for a two-bedroom.
The point of the 75th percentile: it is closer to what is being signed now than the median. The gap between them shows how much a new tenant overpays relative to long-standing ones.
Where from: SERPAVISERPAVIThe Ministry of Housing's public registry of rents: medians of actual signed leases by municipality.Why it matters. Asking rent and signed rent are different things: across our base listings run about one and a half times above the registry. The registry shows what people actually pay., Ministerio de Vivienda · municipality: Badalona
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 850 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 1 150 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 1 500 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 728 €/mo | SERPAVISERPAVIThe Ministry of Housing's public registry of rents: medians of actual signed leases by municipality.Why it matters. Asking rent and signed rent are different things: across our base listings run about one and a half times above the registry. The registry shows what people actually pay. · 72 m² |
Asking prices are what long lets are advertised at today; the registry is what tenants pay on signed leases, including old ones. The gap between them is your negotiating argument.
Schools nearby
estimateInternational schools counted in the base: 1. Names and curricula for this place are not verified yet — the school registry covers the thirty most-requested places so far.
3Renting without a Spanish contract
How realistic a long lease is without a nóminanóminaA Spanish employment contract with payslips. Landlords ask for it as proof of income.Why it matters. A newcomer does not have one and will not in the first year. Where it is required, a long lease is nearly impossible — even with money in the bank. — on foreign income, savings or prepayment.
- —A community with its own services: agencies have dealt with foreigners before
- —Prices rising 9% a year — the landlord picks, and the first filter is a nómina
This is our model, not a measurement: demanding a nóminanóminaA Spanish employment contract with payslips. Landlords ask for it as proof of income.Why it matters. A newcomer does not have one and will not in the first year. Where it is required, a long lease is nearly impossible — even with money in the bank. is an individual landlord's practice and nobody publishes it. The rating is derived from the share of foreign residents, the presence of a community with services, price growth, seasonality of the stock and the size of the town.
Who lives here
INEINESpain's National Statistics Institute. It keeps the padrón — the official register of residents of every municipality.Why it matters. The only primary source of population for the whole country. A figure 'per INE' can be checked against a table; a figure 'from the internet' cannot. 2025Foreign residents on the padrónpadrónThe municipal register of residents. Registering in it — empadronamiento — proves you live here.Why it matters. Official population comes from it, and you will need it yourself: without registration there is no health card and no school enrolment.
18.4%
42,505 of 230,642
- Pakistan7 881
- Morocco4 731
- China4 723
- Colombia2 698
- Honduras2 609
- India1 545
- Italy1 517
- Peru1 485
Communities and services in their language
- zhChinese~4 000school, doctors or lawyers in the language
- arArabic~6 000
Where from: INEINESpain's National Statistics Institute. It keeps the padrón — the official register of residents of every municipality.Why it matters. The only primary source of population for the whole country. A figure 'per INE' can be checked against a table; a figure 'from the internet' cannot., Censo Anual de Población · the register-based census counts padrónpadrónThe municipal register of residents. Registering in it — empadronamiento — proves you live here.Why it matters. Official population comes from it, and you will need it yourself: without registration there is no health card and no school enrolment. registrations by citizenship on 1 January, not everyone living here: seasonal owners and the unregistered are outside it, and naturalised residents count as Spanish.
Winter direct flights from BCNBarcelona — El Prat airportIATA code BCN.
January 2026/2730 min to the airport- other countries76
- Italy16
- United Kingdom14
- France11
- Germany9
- Poland6
- Netherlands3
- Switzerland3
- Portugal3
- Ireland2
- Belgium2
- Denmark2
- Austria2
- Sweden1
- Norway1
- Finland1
- Czechia1
Destinations served at least weekly in January; checked 2026-09-17.
Paperwork and practicalities
Appointment for the TIETIETarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero — the plastic residence card with your NIE and the permit's expiry. Issued at the police after entering on a visa or after a permit is approved.Why it matters. Without the card you cannot open a resident bank account, sign a long lease or prove your status at the border. The police appointment (cita) is a weeks-long bottleneck in some provinces.· Barcelonafrom reports
1The worst province in the country alongside Madrid. In June 2026 the Barcelona bar association described people spending three months looking for a fingerprint appointment. The newspaper El País reported slots being bought for 50 to 200 euros. The police themselves admitted they were short-staffed. Automatic booking has run since January 2026 in L'Hospitalet only. Free slots vanish within minutes, and people on forums look for fixers and bots.
1 — no slots for weeks, 5 — freely available. Checked 2026-09-17
Coworking within 3 km
not on the map
Dog beaches within 8 km
not on the map
From OpenStreetMap — an open map filled in by volunteers. Something missing there may still exist: read this as «we found this many», not «there are no more».
Where to look next
Cheaper with the same sea
